He holds my hand for a second before lifting it to his lips. The warmth of his mouth presses into the back of my hand, searing straight through my skin, down my spine, and curling low in my belly.
He lowers my hand and guides it to his arm, not releasing me. Then he leans down, lips just near enough for his breath to graze my skin without touching. “We know each other,” he murmurs.
My eyes slide from his to the ballroom, taking in the faces turned toward us. People are looking, murmuring, whispering.
I look back up at Dominic, who’s watching me with a knowing look. I realize this was never about clearing anything up. They didn’t invite me here to say I don’t know him. They invited me here to stand beside him.
Dominic leads me through the ballroom with that same steady, unhurried stride. We move past gilded tables and flickering candles, and suddenly the air thickens as we approach the long, gleaming table near the front of the room. Every man seated there turnstoward us. Suits stretch across broad shoulders. Smirks twitch across stubbled jaws.
He doesn’t make a show of it, just nods at the group. “This is the team.”
All eyes slide to me.
I blink up at Dom. “You want me to remember all their names?”
A blond man laughs. “Don’t worry. Most of us don’t remember each other half the time.”
“In that case, hi. I’m Jessica. No memory required.” I give them a tight smile.
That gets a round of grins and a few chuckles.
There are three empty chairs. Dominic slides behind one and pulls it out for me without a word. “Thank you,” I murmur, slipping into the chair.
He takes the seat beside me, long legs stretching under the table, his presence sinking into the air like a gravitational pull. I can feel him even when I’m not looking.
The men at the table are still watching me, but not rudely. Across the table, a man with sharp eyes and an even sharper jaw raises his glass. “Jace,” he says.
“And I’m Melody.” The woman beside him, wild dark curls, glowing skin, in a strapless emerald dress that could kill, beams at me. “I’m obsessed with your dress.”
“Thank you! It’s mine. I mean… I made it.” A nervous laugh escapes me as I automatically look down.
“No kidding!” Her eyes widen.
After a few jokes back and forth, I find myself relaxing. It seems I’ve survived the initiation. A man in a navy suit recounts a story about a puck knocking him out, and he’s telling it to me specifically. Even Dominic cracks something close to a laugh beside me.
These guys are not what I expected. They’re not stiff or intimidating, not shutting me out. Each story they tell at the table is for me, meant to make me laugh. This isn’t polite tolerance; they’re welcoming me.
I’m still nervous, but now it isn’t fear. It’s adrenaline from sitting next to their captain.
He leans in, his cologne invading my senses again. “White or red?” he asks, holding eye contact.
What? Oh, wine. Right.
“Vodka,” I say, raising a brow.
“Neat?” He watches me for a second, lips tugging into the ghost of a smirk.
“Neat,” I confirm with a small nod.
He waves a passing waiter down with two fingers. “Vodka for the lady. Neat.”
The server nods and vanishes.
Forty minutes into dinner, and I’m not sure if I’m drunk or just fully possessed. My skin feels too tight, my lungs too shallow, and my blood thick with heat.
It’s him.
Dominic hasn’t said a word in ten minutes. He hasn’t even looked at me. But his thigh keeps brushing mine—light and barely there—the kind of contact you could write off as accidental if it hadn’t already happened four times.
